This morning I awoke to the Korean Hospital breaking into full song just on the other side of my thin drywall partition between my place and theirs. To make things worse, it was on a muffled sound system. I couldn't sleep in much as a result, but that was ok. I dragged myself out of bed, got a quick shower before one of the other religious people at the guest house do, and headed off to get a quick free brekkie at the UB Deli, the restaurant associated with the guest house. Every time I eat there, the "standard" breakfast is different. Some days the eggs are runny, other days hard. Some days I get bread, other days toast. Some days I get cubed potatoes, other I get crisps (American potato chips). Interesting.... this morning it was for once, actually toast, eggs over medium, and cubed potatoes - good!

I then headed off to the post office to send a few card overseas but couldn't figure out where at the post office you actually send things. Inside this huge building designated as the "post office" is a telecommunications centre (phone booths), package delivery, a tourist information centre where no one speaks English, and a cell phone shop. I finally found a small free-standing kiosk where they sold stamps and they directed me to drop the stamped envelopes into a small post box that looked like it should have been out on the street instead. Perhaps the letter will one day arrive.

After that, I headed back to the French Cafe and was again greeted by the musical dump truck. This time I got some video and photos! I'm now going to get a few more formatting points done on the poster and get it printed - today I hope!

Anyway, here I am now typing this so I'll see ya later.

After a quick revision of the poster (yet again) I went to have one of the local Mongolians at the guest house do a quick read to make sure it all made sense. For the most part, it was good and very understandable. She just had a few minor fixes like inserting a space here or there, and changing a word to a more common one. Overall, it seems like it passes now. I took the final copy over to a place called Nemo Design. They do a lot of the movie posters here in town and they seem to know what they're doing. I asked about getting an A2 size poster but the minimum quantity was 500 - a bit too much for me to afford at the moment. I went back to the A3 size instead, and the quantity minimum was only 300 so I went ahead with that. They'll be printing the poster on nice thick paper and doing a bit of design work on it to make it more professional looking. I'm glad that it's finally at the printer's and I can relax now.

Once I got back to the guest house, it was time to once again get ready for the weekly hash (the hike into the hills). I met up with the group at 6:15 as always, and there were a lot of people there today. There was a large German group along today but they were all in good spirits and we headed out to the mystery location. This time, we ended up about the same place as last week but just a few ridges west. The group split in two as usual, with the "flat walkers" and the "hill walkers/runners" (aka the crazies). About half of us headed up the hill, and Catriona and I led the way as the fastest hikers. As usual, when you think you've arrived at the top, there's actually another peak just behind the one you reached that keeps pushing you along until you get to the real peak. Most people stopped at the first one or two mini peaks, but we kept on until we got to a great lookout spot. About 3 or 4 minutes after our arrival, we were greeted by the next group trailing us. Catriona stopped there while I headed on up the hill to the very top, where I of course found an oovo. On my way, I saw several foxes scurrying about the hillside looking very excited, probably because there were people around. The oovo at the top looked surprisingly familiar, until it occurred to me that this was the same one as last week, but we had just approached it from a different ridge line. Anyway, it made for some more great photos and I headed back. At the bottom of the hill we had some veggie-filled pastries and of course a beer. Songs were sung to welcome the newcomers and I got a "send-off" song since it was to be my last time here this trip. I'm sure I'll be back at some point though.

After a quick stop by Dave's pub to warm up and eat a little food, it was time to head back and cal it a night. When I got home, I saw that I had an email from the design company with the new poster sample and I was very impressed at the difference proper design makes. It actually looked like a real poster, not just something put together in Word (which it was!). I am really looking forward to seeing the final result in print. I'll bring a few copies home with me to keep but the rest will be distributed to the local hospitals and clinics.

Off to sleep once again. I am scheduled to head to the trauma clinic tomorrow afternoon, and I need to pick up a suitcase from the flea market (called the "black market" here) to take all my souvenirs for everybody home in. Unfortunately I couldn't talk to Michelle tonight because when she rang I had bad reception way out in the hills on a bus. Hopefully tomorrow!

G'night!